BY DAYO ADESULU

The hope of out-of-school adolescent girls going back to school is revived as Action Health Incorporated in conjunction with Fordfoundation, a non governmental organizations that are saddled with the responsibility of working with visionaries on the frontlines of Social Change Worldwide vouched to do every thing humanly possible to restore the hope of schooling to them.

Addressing the developmental needs of out-of-school adolescent girls recently in a stakeholders forum held in Lagos, the Executive Director, Action Health Incorporated, Mrs Adenike Esiet said that a recent research carried out by AHI on out-of-school adolescent girls, using Iwaja community in Lagos State as a case study discovered about four hundred and eighty (480) adolescent girls that are not in school and without ambition in live. Commenting on the research work, Professor Friday Okonofua who represented FORDFOUNDATION noted that to actualized the vision of sending them back to school, it will take the combine efforts of both the NGO and the government adding that one of the ways to measure the success of a government is when it provides support for the less privilege.

Analyzing the research carried out on Iwaja community, Dr Michael Kunnuji, Lecturer, Department of Sociology, University of Lagos and also consultant in charge of the project said that Iwaya has over 50,000 dwellers. According to Kunnuji, the research objectives include: Getting the demographic characteristics of out-of-school adolescent girls in Lagos; their level of education and reasons for not being in school; their degree of girls deprivation or vulnerability; their sexual behavior and experience; their knowledge and use of birth control and HIV/AIDS prevention methods and required education, health and livelihood interventions.

The research carried out on their education, said he, pointed out that a quarter 25% of the girls had never attended school saying that amongst those who had ever been enrolled, more than one third 37% never went beyond primary school. While about 35% of the girls had basic education (i.e. education up to JS3 or 9 years of formal education counting from primary 1) It was discovered that only 8% of the girls completed secondary education.

Testing the level of their education, questions on reproductive health were asked and just 12% have the right answers to questions. The questions were: Is it possible to contract HIV/AIDS through mosquito bite. Can one be afflicted by HIV/AIDS through witchcraft. Is it possible for a healthy looking person to be HIV possible? Explaining further, Dr Kunnuji reiterated that amongst girls with no formal education, just one percent had the right answers to these questions while 22 percent of girls who completed secondary education could answer all the three questions correctly. “About 22 percent of the girls had never heard of HIV/AIDS,” he said.

In the course of interviewing the girls, said Kunnuji, it was gathered that about half (49 percent) had initiated sexual activity; about a tenth of them were married; a third (33 percent) of the sexually active girls had experience forced sex at the time of the study. Again, less than a third (32.7 percent) of the girls were aware of at least one contraceptive method, and just 14 percent had ever used any of the methods. About 1 out of 5 (19 percent) of the girls had been pregnant or had a child before.

In order to arrest the situation, Kunnuji insisted that orientation of parents and children on the value of acquiring formal education must be done and the children must be willing to go back to school. He urged the government to introduce functional literacy programmes for the lest privileged. “There should be an enhanced economic empowerment of community members by the government. Livelihood skills acquisition opportunities for girls should be made available. Besides, there should be access to sexuality education and youth friendly reproductive health services. And to create forums to involve role model as mentors for adolescent girls so as to copy the good aspect of their lives.”